Maybe this post doesn't go here, but it kinda maybe has to do with water testing so I figured why not.

I recently purchased a few Zoa frags and a star polyp frag from a guy down here in Orem, who I stop at every now and then cause he has some different types then the norm that I see down here. I got them home acclimated them and got them in the tank, only to have the Star Polyps being the ones that open now three days later. I went and talked to him a yesterday about all the Zoa's being closed up and he said just watch them to see what happens. He said he would replace them if they died. I'm just confused as to why this would happen, the one's I bought from him yesterday are starting to open and all the other corals in my tank are doing great. Or so I thought, I came home last night to get the new ones in and one of my rarer hammer corals is all sunken in. Some of the heads are out, but the majority are sinking back into the skeleton.

I hadn't changed my water up until for about 2 weeks up until this last Sunday. I know it's slacking off from my once a week change, but getting married in two weeks and finishing off the planning has taken a lot of my free time. So on Sunday I got back into the grove and did my usual 5 gallon water change. Didn't get a chance to test the water till last night cause I checked the PH on Sunday and it was low, so I dosed some and got it back up to the normal 8.4 that I have kept it at.
Got around to testing last night with the API Saltwater Masters Test kit and everything came out great but the Nitrates, I can never really read the stupid color test for that one anyways, but I believe it came out to be around between 40-80ppm I think it is. Could this be a reason? I also need to get a new heater in, the one I had been using was making a popping sound when it was on, so I was worried that it was breaking, but I notice only a 3 degree change in temp when the lights go off.

How can I get my nitrates back to the low they need to be at? And should I not worry about the corals? They haven't really started melting down yet so maybe they just need time or something?

Thanks in advance for the help

Thanks for the info Billy,

Maybe I will take some samples down to my LFS and have them test it for me today and see what they come up with. 

My tank is probably only about 7 and a half months old. It's a 56 gallon cube thing, I have a compact light I had to special order for the weird tank size. It has the Metal Halide in the middle then 4 T5s two on each side. I run the MH light for 8 hours from 12-8. For flow I have a Koralia 550 aimed at the surface for water movement and a Vortech MP 10 in the middle for flow for the whole tank. Works awesome. I have 120lbs of live rock in the tank and I let it cycle for a month. The overflow box that i use is the Eshopps overflow box. It came with a couple sponges that you put in the box and I actually did clean both of those on the last water change..I the big one every time I do a water change, and I had forgotten about the smaller one till this last week but I cleaned that one as well this last time. When I took it out though I noticed large chunks of either food or algae or something being sucked up. Could that be a reason why my nitrates are spiking? I change out the filter sock each weak as well. How do you clean yours? I put my in the washing machine by themselves. Don't know if that's the best. I've also noticed that my sump has more particles at the bottom then it used to have. Is that normal? My skimmer is rated for a 200 gallon and seems to be doing a great job.

I do have a test kit that does Alkalinity and Calcium. Just haven't done that in a while, because I was told it wasn't needed.. I will do that today as well and let you know how all the tests turn out.

And it's only the new corals that are having issues, well and the one hammer. All the other corals look great and have really nice growth...Probably need to learn how to frag stuff soon. I don't mean to sound like a punk sorry if I do, but wouldn't everything be having issues if I had a serious problem? Fish are all doing awesome and I have noticed a few snails dying, but the Hermits and My sexy shrimp, Porcelain crabs, and Harlequin Shrimp seem to all be doing fine.

Just gotta love the random issues that come up don't ya? Well I will do what I can t get those levels down. As far as I know my phosphate levels are correct. I have a reactor that has some material in it that for the life of me I can't think of the name. It lasts about 3 months and I can always tell when I need to replace it cause I will get a small Cyano break out when it's done.

Well I will start testing Cal and ALK again during my weekly water changes. Do you think it would be better then to do my water changes from the sump instead of the display tank so I can suck up that decaying material better?

BillyC wrote: You should worry about your corals. I'd highly recommend letting someone else hold onto them until your tank is healthy again. First please tell us how old this tank is and how you set it up (tank size, lighting, flow, amount of live rock and how long you cycled it for, etc) Here what I would do. 1. Stop dosing stuff. You are never supposed to dose to increase your ph. Your dosing may actually be the reason why your corals are struggling. Ph is the last thing you should worry about. I haven't checked my ph in over a year. 2. Test your salinity and if possible test it with someone else's equipment too. For a reef tank you should be 1.024-1.026. 3. If your nitrates are that high, stop feeding completely for a few days. Change out all of your filter media. Dirty filter socks and dirty HOB filters are nitrate factories. 4. Invest in test kits for alkalinity and calcium. Test it and please share with us the results. Don't dose anything unless you know what your doing yet.

Billy will not lead you wrong.  Listen to his advise.  One of the best tanks I've seen and some really great coral.

Fat

Billy's advice was spot-on. And, for future reference, green star polyps are usually the canary in the mineshaft for salinity issues.

fishyman19 wrote: So I think after I get the replacement ones from him, I probably won't be going back for anything else.

I hope you'll reconsider this as it was your tank with the issues - not his corals. Warranties on corals are practically unheard of in the hobby. If he was willing to bend over backwards and replace your corals, then I hope you would continue to support him. Just my $0.02.

I'm sorry but I'm not seeing how this is a hundred percent my fault. Yes my water quality was bad, but nothing went downhill until his coral was put in. and of all the coral that I bought from him 3 did survive and are doing great.

I have bought several from him though that all died within a few days. Everything in my tank coral and fish wise is thriving and doing great! So i blame the stores coral. Yes he did get me some new ones...which half of them died as well. He also lost most of his stock to coral die off problems. So go ahead and keep telling me it's my fault. Cause I'm pretty sure my water quality issues are what wiped out some of the coral in his frag tank too.

fishyman19 wrote: He also lost most of his stock to coral die off problems.

This is the first I've seen this fact in your thread.  I think if you had introduced it earlier, people's analysis may have been very different.  At first it seemed that you may have had an unhealthy tank, but that your own livestock may have gradually gotten used to it.  But when introducing new livestock it couldn't handle what was going on in your tank.  But now it does look like there was something wrong with the corals you recently purchased if the LFS has also lost most of his corals.  I hope the LFS figures out what went wrong!

As stated above, yes, it sounded like it was your tank with the problem, not his. It's too bad both of you were having issues.

My guess is that the zoanthids may have had zoa-pox or some other fungal infection that was spread to your tank (quite common and easy to treat.) When the zoanthids were moved, it stressed them, and being introduced to a poor water quality environment further stressed them...leading to the losses.

It's too bad on everyone's part, but if I were you, I still wouldn't hold a grudge against the seller. There are several hundred known coral parasites, and dozens of coral diseases...and we know more about other planets than we do about what's in our ocean. There's no possible way for any aquarist (or even seller) to know what pests/diseases they have. Now that the seller knows he has a problem, if he choses to neglect the problem rather than correct it, then that's when I'd go elsewhere.

Glad to hear things are getting back on track. If you continue to have a problem with just the zoanthids, I'd look into zoa-pox and Furan-2.